Phnom Penh Express

“Writer Johan Smits has now stepped into the mystery/suspense fray with
Phnom Penh Express
... The quirky plotline unfolds at a cracking pace that will drag the willing reader along by the sweet tooth.”

— Douglas Long,
The Phnom Penh Post

“Phnom Penh Express
adds a playful twist, a splash of passion and a dose of humour to the otherwise dark world of corruption and organised crime.”

— Charlie Lancaster,
Southeast Asia Globe

“The writing is crisp, the plot intriguing, and the suspense sustained until the last page.”

— Michelle Vachon,
The Cambodia Daily

“
Phnom Penh Express
is in the rare 20 per cent pile of books I finish reading. It’s light, entertaining and gave me a chance to see a Phnom Penh I couldn’t have imagined.”

— Colin Cotterill,
author of the
Dr. Siri Paibonn
mystery series

“A thoroughly good read... Not since the days of Tintin has a Belgian novelist captured the essence of expat life in the Far East.”

— Mark Jackson,
AsiaLIFE Guide

Text copyright © 2012 Johan Smits

© First published in 2010 by Mekong Media Company

Cover art by Opal Works Co. Limited

Permissions obtained for use of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and ‘Macarena’ lyrics.

This edition published in 2012 Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Request for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300,

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[email protected]
.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no events be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited

National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Smits, Johan

Phnom Penh Express / Johan Smits. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2012.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978 981 4435 26 0

1. Corruption – Cambodia – Fiction. 2. Cambodia – Fiction. I. Title

PR9100.9

828.9949303 — dc22       OCN775401971

Printed by Times Printers

For Jef & Gaby

Cambodia is a beautiful country with multiple faces. When covered in the media it is often linked to corruption, the Khmer Rouge period and border conflicts. Many of its qualities never reach the news. However, for an opportunistic author writing a fictional story, the media provide a rich source of inspiration to draw from and I have not held back from doing so. Corruption is not just a Cambodian problem but a global one. During the six years that I have been living in Cambodia, I have never personally been confronted with serious corruption, nor have I heard personal accounts of this from fellow expatriates. I hope that any Cambodian reading this story will recognise it as a humorous take on corruption, rather than a one-sided portrayal of his or her country. It is in this spirit that it has been written and, I hope, will be enjoyed.

THE LUSH FOLIAGE of the old tamarind trees that line Street 240 form a beautiful verdant canopy some three metres above the ground. They offer a welcome protection from the sweltering heat of a Cambodian noon. The famous Phnom Penh street, stretching along the south wall of the Royal Palace, bustles with charming boutiques, restaurants and roadside food stalls.

Despite the hive of activity around it, an old French colonial building guards its quiet grace. Shielded from the outside world by a striking gate, wrought from dark green metal and shaped like long-stemmed lotus flowers, it seems almost forgotten by time. No one would suspect that inside the otherwise empty building, a peculiar little drama is unfolding. A 29-year-old man is about to embark on a most unusual journey.

Behind closed doors on the ground floor, two stainless steel chocolate-melting machines hum monotonously. The rich aroma of dark, bitter chocolate from one machine is marrying the sweet, lighter smell of milk chocolate from the other, forming a wondrous olfactory blend of divine bliss that would make you want to lick the air. The Cambodian-born man, however, is oblivious to this. He’s used to it. After all, Phirun is Cambodia’s chocolate wizard: the genius responsible for such divine creations as the Kampot Pepper Truffle and the Vodka Mango Praline; the
chocolatier
whose profession involves activities many people would gladly pay for instead of being paid. A young man whose talents grace him with the potential to be elevated to hero status by a not inconsiderable number of sweet-toothed local women. Perhaps even lover status. Yet, this is not the reason why Phirun is oblivious to the intoxicating aroma filling the room. It’s because one of his other senses demands his entire concentration: his sense of sight. He stares intently at the swirling sea of chocolate flowing inside one of his melting machines. He’s convinced he’s witnessing a modern miracle — the spiralling primordial vortex before him represents nothing less than the grand cosmos itself.

After having spent years working as a
sous-chef
in a prestigious chocolate making atelier in Belgium, where he lived as a Khmer refugee for most of his life, Phirun is now finally witnessing his dream come to fruition. Since his boss Nina had hired him as the executive chef for her new chocolate venture, here in his country of birth, the possibilities seemed virtually limitless. Back in Belgium it would take him years to get into a similar position. But here, Nina has granted him total creative freedom.

His eyes remain transfixed on the black universe spinning inside the large metallic bowl.

“I’m like the God of Chocolate...” he mumbles, moving his head closer towards the sticky, undulating mass.

It had all started a couple of weeks ago, over dinner with a friend.

“Let’s go for a happy pizza,” the friend had suggested, and Phirun had agreed that, “Sure, Italian sounds good.”

Only it wasn’t until dessert that Phirun discovered what the word ‘happy’ in happy pizza stands for. His immense naiveté was suddenly matched by a woozily pleasant surprise. And it was during that three-hour-long eureka moment of absolute mental clarity that Phirun had the idea of making his own version — happy chocolates.

This morning saw the start of his experiments. An entirely new and fascinating world was opening up to him. The entire previous week he had toiled hard on producing myriads of chocolate products for the upcoming official launch — from truffles and pralines to brownies via the creamiest ice cream imaginable... He’s earned the distraction, he thinks; some quality time for his personal, creative development. After all, he’s the chef.

He takes another of this morning’s happy chocolate creations and pops it quickly in his mouth. It’s a honey-flavoured white chocolate from a special, private collection of six different tastes that he has baptised
Space Odyssey 2001
, after his favourite film.

As the swirling mass of cosmic candy grows larger in front of Phirun’s unblinking, bloodshot eyes, his thoughts seem to clear.

“I am God,” he mumbles, “I really am.”

Gazing transfixed at the spiralling stream of cacao in the large, round vessel, he realises how everything important in this world is essentially spiral shaped. The suspension on his motorcycle, church staircases, seashells on the beach, the one-celled organisms which spawned mankind spiralling in the ocean depths... The entire galaxy!

He moves his head further inside the bowl, poking out his tongue and inhaling the dark matter within. Splashes of warm chocolate land on his nose, spattering his cheeks and matting his hair. He suddenly plunges his hand madly into the swirling sea of liquid cacao, then whips it out and dangles it a few centimetres in front of his eyes. The chocolate slowly drips off his fingers back into the bowl. Of course, of course, he thinks. We are all made of galactic dust, we are all the same atoms, we are all one, we are all chocolate! Tears of emotion well up in his eyes. He sticks his head back inside the bowl and mumbles, “My brothers, my sisters, here I am...”

Suddenly an irresistible craving overwhelms him.

“I’ll be back, my love,” he whispers and walks towards a large refrigerator.

He opens the door and studies a label discreetly attached to the bottom of one of the boxes.
Speed truffles
, he reads. He takes one and puts it in his mouth... but soon craves another. It’s after he eats a third that he feels his heartbeat start to accelerate.

His breath quickens, and despite the air conditioning system blasting cold air at full surge, Phirun is sweating profusely.

He reaches out for a plastic flask of water on his work surface but misses and instead brushes an expensive litre bottle of the world’s finest Calvados, a vital ingredient of his brandy pralines. It tumbles and shatters into pieces on the floor.

“Oh...” he murmurs noncommittally, lowering himself onto his hands and knees to lick up some of the Calvados streaming across the floor. After two slurps he becomes distracted by a very shapely bag of flour.

“Oh...” Phirun reaches out for the bag on his table, but this time it’s much closer than he thought. When the bag lands with a light thud, its white powdered contents spill out, mixing with the Calvados dregs already sopping the floor.

“Oh...”

THERE’S VIRTUALLY NO cellphone reception in room 1711 of the Crown Plaza hotel. Every time Dieter Driekamp needs to make a call he has to step onto the balcony of his seventeenth-floor hotel room. He doesn’t mind this — the outdoors temperature is fine and the view is superb. To his left there’s the splendid panorama of Tel Aviv’s skyline. He tries to pick out the tall triangular tower of the Azrieli observatory, one of the city’s best-known civic landmarks. He fails. Never mind, it’s a pleasant, still afternoon and a good time to light a Lucky Strike.

To his right, the deep blue Mediterranean Sea and the lighter shade of the sky’s blue background gently blend into one another, making it almost impossible to distinguish the horizon’s fine line. Seventeen floors below, the hotel’s swimming pool looks like nothing more than a little turquoise square, the size of a table napkin.

Dieter inhales deeply, letting the nicotine enter his lungs. The tall Renaissance hotel opposite casts a long rectangular shadow onto the white-sand beach beneath it. He likes Tel Aviv. His favourite seafood restaurant serves the finest sea bass he’s ever tasted and also happens to employ one of the most charming waitresses he’s ever encountered. Once you get to know them, the people here are friendly. Quite Mediterranean, he ponders. And beautiful. A blend of Arab and Western that he finds particularly sexy, and here they’re not that damn prudish as in Jerusalem. He especially likes to eye up the young female army recruits roaming the city’s shopping malls in their uniforms. Those clingy army togs get him really horny, the 42-year-old finds. The thought of those military girls starts to make Dieter feel frisky — on the spur of the moment he decides to hit the nightlife tonight. The new scenery will make a welcome change from his usual hangouts back home in Johannesburg.